India

Recently I was working with someone over a three day period and at the end of that time I decided to give them a bit of the water I brought home from the Ganges River in India when I was there many years ago. I believe in about 2006 or so. They shared that I had give it to them on Facebook and I realized I have never really talked about my trip to India with one of my teachers.

We landed one day in New Delhi, India. We visited a site or two in New Delhi, the one I remember is was an old Mosque with beautiful pillars (I took photos of these). We meditated there for a bit. It was nice and relaxing. I noticed right away a social difference. We had a tour guide (wonder man who has passed away since) and he was talking to us as we sat on the group and listened to him, and several men stood behind him and just observed us. It was different than how we would observe a group.

Another difference and interesting behavior was whenever our buses stopped somewhere to eat, or use the bathroom men would gather around our group and do not hesitate to approach individuals and start a conversation if they speak English. It is so different than what I would do if I ran across a group of people who are obviously from another place. I remember being in one small town and met a man who had a degree in English Literature. A very friendly man and was had a nice conversation.

There was also the poverty. In New Delhi there was a road that was about four lanes in one direction and had a space of dirt on each side of the road and then a short metal fence. Families had long homemade tents set up there and were living along this busy road. These were not good conditions for people to live in, and everyone I talked to seemed to be at peace on a level most people I meet in other places have not achieved. My impression was that India is the heart of the world.

The entire trip was amazing and the song Thank You India always reminds me of this trip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOgpT5rEKIU

We journeyed through the country usually close to the Ganges River. I will not remember this in order at all. We visited a temple of the Bahia faith and talked to people from the temple, the grounds were beautiful and the people were friendly. It was interesting. Peaceful.

We went to Agra and saw the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort there that has a view of the Taj Mahal. We spent the day at the Taj Mahal just being on the grounds. The grounds are huge and the buildings are beautiful, many, many people and again a peaceful place. One of the most amazing places I have been in my life.

We went to Krishna’s birthplace and meditated outside the prison cell he was supposed to be born in. One of the people with us has always been a lover of Krishna and she wept with love to be there. Some women took her aside as we left the room, and talked to her, they saw her devotion.

In the town of Krishna’s birthplace, small town, was a huge above ground cistern where water collected and the town’s water source. Amazing and I would not have taking a drink from it.

We went to Varanasi an ancient city on the shore of the Ganges. It has ancient buildings along the waterfront where the city meets the shore. I had profound experiences while on the Ganges at dawn as the sun came up and shone on those buildings. We went to an ancient ceremony on the river the night before that has been performed there every night for at least 2000 years, and I believe more like 5,000.

We then went to Nalanda an ancient Buddhist university. Again I had a profound experience in a small room with a teacher’s platform. This place was transformational for me.

We travelled to the Kumbamayla (sp), a spiritual gathering along the Ganges river where the Sahdu’s come out of the mountains to dunk themselves in the Ganges and gather together. There were thousands of people there it was amazing, and again people would talk to us and we walked through the crowd. We were an oddity in this place and this huge crowd of Hindu adherents. I remember a conversation with a man who asked me, “Why are you here?” I responded, “Looking for truth.” He said, “Truth is everywhere.” I said, “But I am here.” We bowed to each other and separated in the crowd. We spent a full day at that place.

We went to Bodhgaya, where the Bodhi Tree is that Buddha was enlightened under. This is not the original tree from 2500 years ago, but the story is a cutting was taken from it a long time ago and planted in Sri Lanka, and when the original tree died a cutting from that tree was taken and planted at the original site. And that tree was huge and very old when I sat under it and meditated. It is a beautiful tree that is behind a small temple/shrine honoring the buddha. Nearby is a pond with lotus lilies. There is a market outside of the temple area and I talked to a young man there who was of the lowest caste in India. He was happy, loving and peaceful. I bought a painting of a mandala there that is hanging in my house now.

While in the area of Bodhgaya we also went to different caves where the Buddha was said to have meditated. We had the opportunity to sit in some of these caves. I imagine many meditators have meditated there. I felt huge energy in those caves.

We went to the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains to a town called Rishikesh near the head waters of the Ganges. This small village has also been the site of a daily Hindu ritual for thousands of years and we observed such a rituals.

There were likely many other moments that touched my heart and more while wandering through the Indian country side. I was grounded and peaceful even in the crowded streets of Varanasi. The beauty there was not always aesthetic to my western eyes, but it was always present.

Thank you India…

The End of the World

Hi, it has been a while.  I have written on this before and I have a book chapter on this in “Living in Uncertain Times.”  I do not know what it is about us humans that makes us feel that the end of the world is just around the corner.  One person speculated that we cannot conceive of a world that goes on after we are gone and therefore, we feel that it all must end.  Or maybe it is our own impending deaths that we feel and therefore, we do feel the world is ending in some way.  I am not sure, but I have been through many end of the world scenarios, as I am sure all of you have.

The fist I remember was probably the cold war.  I grew up in a world of impending doom.  Everyone thought that the world would end at any time.  We were on the brink of nuclear war that would be the end of civilization.  Now I do not want to play down the danger of those times, but somehow we made it through that without destroying the world.  I hope we have evolved past the point where they is possible, although we still have a nuclear arsenal and who knows, but we are not living under the threat of nuclear war every day.  For those who are too young to remember it, it was a pressure on the whole country and each individual.  We lived with the idea that it could all end any moment.

The next one I remember is the Y2K.  I was working with a group of people at that time who totally bought in to the end of the world.  Now this group was traumatized from previous life experiences and I tried to calm their hysteria.  And when the change to 2000 happened, nothing happened.  Then some where along the line there was this guy Kamping who said he had worked out bible prophecy and the world was ending in May of (some year I don’t remember).  He had his large television audience send all their money, savings, retirement to him so they could put up billboards around the country to save as many of the people as possible before the world ended.  When it did not happen he said he made a mistake and it would happen in October….  Many people lost everything investing in that end of the world.

People thought when Bush II was elected it was the end of the world.  That we would never survive his presidency.  It did not end again…

Then 2012 approached.  Our world did not end over because computer operating systems did not go beyond 1999 so now it is going to end because the Mayan Calendar was closing.  Our calendar closes out and starts over every year, they had a long count calendar (that if we were right) ended a 26,000 year cycle.  I believe that cycle is likely how long it takes Earth the to go around the whole galaxy.  How the Mayans may have figured that out is another matter.  I don’t have time to work out a 26,000 year cycle personally.

In the past eight years I am sure there has been another end of the world that I did not hear of or remember.  But I do remember that we have been told there is going to be a worldwide pandemic over and over again.  SARS, MERS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu and others.  Here are the recent flu statistics, if you care:  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm?fbclid=IwAR3_8zEXnJm4Ab2b2DaCV5IadaygdMLFGIulMbpCwJU0LHzOQWWs0i0_XaI

As I said we have been told over and over again about a pandemic.  I think that this time we believed it, and we have reacted in panic.  I hope if there is a zombie apocalypse we are told in great detail what is going on so we can grab all the toilet paper and hold up and wait.

It seems to me that there is always something that is going to cause the end of the world, and we seem ready to buy it, whatever the current flavor it is.  I am sure in the future it will be an huge meteor or an alien invasion or something else I cannot conceive.

I am not in a panic about the current virus situation.  I am not that attached to this life.  We all die, I will die, everyone I know will die.  If I was to contract this current virus and die, then I just died.  If I do not contract this virus and die, then something else will kill me in the future.  Another virus, old age, heart trouble, car accident, someone who doesn’t agree with me…  The possibilities are endless.  I am going to die.  And when it is my time that is when it will happen.

The thing that is constant in this world is change.  Everything is going to change.  Nothing is going to remain the same.  Is that the end of the world?  Likely not, and really the end of the world is not the end of the world, but might be the end of our country, or the current civilization.  The conditions may change for some reason, but the world will likely not end, at least not until we learn to completely blow it up, or the sum goes nova, or some other thing I cannot conceive of.

Likely, the world will not end anytime soon, and I choose not to live as if it were ending tomorrow.  If the conditions change totally and only the preppers live through it, do I want to live in that world anyway?  Probably not.  We are so attached to our lives and the way things are.  Let it go and just live.  One day you will not be alive, enjoy it instead of worrying about how it might end.

Let the fear and panic go…  Just live today, do not worry about what is not.  Our minds spend way too much time worrying about what might go wrong.  We invest a lot of life energy into what it (blank) happens.   I do not want to have a What If? life…

Compassion

This morning as I was preparing for the day I realized I do not have near the compassion for people as I did in the past.  It is not that I am non-compassionate but after 25 years working in the field of family therapy, hypnotherapy, mental health and related things I see the patterns and flow of people’s lives and how we all create our own misery.  Buddha said life is suffering and he went on to say that our attachment to people, things and life circumstances are what cause the suffering.  I am not not Buddhist per se (I do like Buddha), but over the past 10 or more years I have found I am less and less attached to things.  Especially my attachment to things being a certain way.  Just because I would like it to be a certain way does not make it so.  Much of our suffering or misery is a result of not accepting things the way they really are.  We have an idea of how it is, which is often not the reality of how it really is and we hold on to our idea in the face of evidence that our idea is not reality.  Most of us do this constantly, and we suffer much from the conflict between reality and our ideas.

One path to freedom is to accept things they way they really are.  It is a practice to keep accepting things they way they are and not imposing our ideas on our life circumstances.  This may get confusing because some people we have contact with are not presenting themselves they way they really are.  This can disrupt our view of reality.  I usually accept people as they present to me (too much work to constantly question their presentation), and adjust when a new way of presenting is evident.  Some may intentionally present differently than their internal workings, and others may do so because they are not in touch with their inner reality, or maybe they have not found themselves yet.  These can be challenges to living in reality, but we are not responsible for what others show us of themselves.  We are only responsible for ourselves and how we are with others, and striving to not present a fakeness but as much realness as we can.  Some of us have never presented the real us, either through not knowing it or trying to hide something about ourselves we think is not acceptable to others.  Or even to protect others from what we feel about ourselves.  This is another way that we may skew reality or not accept things the way we really are.  One of my teachers said “It is useless to hide from those who cannot see you, because they cannot see you (no matter what you do), and even more useless to hide from those who can see you, because they can see you (no matter what you do).”

Back to compassion.  There is a way we are completely unique, each of us an individual and we feel that deeply, which sometimes makes us feel lonely, and different and not belonging anywhere.  And there is a way we are the same.  We face the same life struggles, and these things play out in similar ways with all of us.  There is a way nothing is new.  We think our world is so different than the work 500 years ago, but the real things people had to deal with where the relationships between themselves and the others around them.  It is always the same, the challenges we face as living in this world are not really uniquely ours.  We share them.  There is nothing new.  It is trust and power and love and conflict and sex and disillusionment.  The life circumstances we individually find ourselves in vary, but the real struggles in life are about relating to others.  The time we live in does not change this.  It is only the backdrop to the play we find ourselves in.  This backdrop is very different in the Amazon Jungle in a tribe that has never been exposed to the outside world, but the issues in relating are the same.  Our solutions and misery are the same with variations to keep it from being too boring.  The people I see in practice all have these same issues and misery.  They can tell a story of how their life circumstances are completely unique (and there is truth to that), but the basic human relating is the same.  Love, rejection, acceptance, trust, commitment…   The dance of life continues in each of our lives.  Accept your life’s dance for what it really is.  See each circumstance as clearly as you can, be in reality and not in a self created illusion about the life you are living.  This relieves suffering.  Be less attached to things being the way your would like them to be and accept them as they really are.  Love yourself, love you life, accept it all the way it is.  Have compassion for yourself and those around you…

20 Rules to live a Happy and Fulfilled Life

I usually write original posts that bubble up in me.  But one of my teacher’s shared this and I thought I would share it in a place where it would not get lost.

 

Each person’s life is very different. No two can compare.

But a Japanese Buddhist claims that there are 20 rules we must all follow to lead a happy and fulfilled life. Mere weeks before he died, Miyamoto Musashi, created a list of the main rules he lived by. Born in 1584, he was an expert swordsman, a renowned warrior and his teachings are still studied today, but most importantly, his rules for life are incredibly inspirational. According to his text, ‘The Way of Walking Alone’ this is how we must all live our lives.

1. LEARN TO ACCEPT LIFE AS IT COMES

For the sake of mental health, you must accept the life you are given. Stress, anxiety, and despair are natural parts of a person’s life, and it should never be attacked. Acceptance of the most difficult aspects of life will make you stronger to their advances.

2. ABANDON ANY OBSESSION TO ACHIEVE PLEASURE

As humans, we spend a lot of time chasing down pleasure – we give in to our cravings, reach higher for promotions and raises, and have become part of a society obsessed with sexual pleasure. Musashi claimed we should try simply to live life in the moment and enjoy pleasure when it comes to us naturally instead of striving for it.

3. DO NOT ACT ON AN IMPULSIVE EMOTION

We are often told to follow our heart, but Musashi’s teachings suggest this is never a good idea. When faced with a feeling that seems to have come from nowhere, following its path can lead to bad decisions. It is advised that we stick with what we know for sure, and don’t give way to impulse.

4. DO NOT OBSESS OVER YOURSELF

Self-obsession is common in humanity. These days, we are so focused on online presence, taking a perfect selfie and striving for perfection, that we forget what matters in life. Strive to separate from yourself and your ego for a better perception of what is important.

5. NEVER ALLOW JEALOUSY TO RULE YOUR LIFE

Jealousy is a very strong form of hatred, and Musashi claimed that getting stuck in its grasp would ruin you. He said never to be jealous of others, and to simply be thankful for what you yourself have.

6. ABANDON ATTACHMENT TO DESIRE

In the same way as achieving pleasure, desire only makes us want for things we may never gain. The idea proposed was to live not wanting more than you have, and to wait for good things to come to you.

7. NEVER LIVE IN REGRET

As we often tell each other, the past cannot be changed. Musashi believed that everything happened for a reason, and it was all part of your path in life. Dwelling on things you once did could never change them.

8. DO NOT DWELL ON A SAD SEPARATION

Constantly thinking on a sad parting of friends or family prevents us from moving on and continuing our lives. Musashi thought that since there was no way to bring back the dead, they should be left behind in the past.

9. COMPLAINING SHOULD HAVE NO PLACE IN YOUR LIFE

Many of us find comfort in complaining when things go wrong, but according to Musashi’s teachings, we should simply let these things pass us by. Dwelling on what is going wrong only prolongs the past’s hold over your life.

10. DON’T LET LUST RULE YOUR LIFE

Humans are sexual beings by nature, and so many people waste their lives on lustful thoughts. Musashi thought we should instead strive for love and lasting relationships.

11. KEEP YOUR OPTIONS OPEN

Do not rule out matters of the future with closed off thoughts. Keep your options wide open to allow for the best opportunities to come your way.

12. DON’T BE A SLAVE TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS

Possessions and a luxurious home may seem important, but there are more important things to treasure in life. Love, health, and life itself should be treasured above all else in the world.

13. LEARN NOT TO BE GLUTTONOUS

We as a society obsess over food and the pleasures of fine dining, or even just a good takeaway. However, Musashi believed that we shouldn’t take so much pleasure in eating, and we should strip meals down to be filling, but not necessarily tasty.

14. ABANDON POSSESSIONS IN FAVOR OF MINIMALISM

Don’t hold on to things you don’t need anymore, in other words. If it once was important, it can still be cast aside now to live a pure and simple life.

15. DO NOT BELIEVE SOMETHING JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE TOLD TO

Allow your own thoughts and beliefs to have space. Don’t just follow the crowd and listen to other’s opinions. Form your own ideas.

16. RESPECT THE GODS, BUT DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON THEIR GUIDANCE

Gods should be looked up to, but they cannot lead you through every motion. They need to be a figure of guidance, but in the end, a person must make their own path.

17. HAVE NO FEAR OF DYING

Fearing death only prevents you from living life to the full. Live each day individually and do not fear the consequences of each action.

18. DO NOT USE WEAPONRY UNLESS IT IS NECESSARY

Despite Musashi’s fame with a sword, he still believed that weaponry should be used sparingly and only when needed. He claimed that defending yourself was okay, but enforcing attack without reason was a sin.

19. DO NOT PUT PRESSURE ON RETIRING WITH RICHES

Many of us save for our retirement age so that we can live a life of luxury, but The Way of Walking Alone claimed we do not need possessions to live happily. Again, it was suggested we should live in the moment and not chase happiness in the form of possessions.

20. ALWAYS PROTECT YOUR HONOR

Musashi claimed that the only way to be true to yourself was to follow your own beliefs and live life as honorably as you know how to.

The text is full of inspirational information. Musashi lived a full, incredible life and to follow his rules seems like a way to achieve the same satisfaction. Though some of his ideas have been branded as crazy, far-fetched and nonsensical if he achieved happiness, who are we to question his practices?

Source: https://dailyinformator.com

 

Living in Uncertain Times

It seems like we are bombarded with messages of fear in recent years.  I actually go all the way back to Y2K.  Everything thing was going to end.  Our society was going to crash.  Computers would not work.  Fear, Fear, Fear…  Then it was the Mayan calendar coming to an coming to the end of a cycle which somehow indicated the end of everything.  And of course we have had various versions of the world is going to end because…  The rapture is happening, the comet is coming by, the calculations have been done (more times than I can count) and the end times are here.

I now think that people cannot imagine the world going on without them.  No body predicts the end of the world in 2165.  They predict it in their life time.  It is like there is no way the world can continue after I am gone, so obviously it is not going to continue.  Something bad is going to happen (choose your flavor of bad here), and our whole civilization is going to fall.  We are going to live out one of the post apocalyptic versions the movies give us.  The Zombie Apocalypse, the run our of oil Apocalypse, the disease will kill us all Apocalypse…  (Choose your own Apocalypse here).

Then there is the our country is going to end because of the current president or political climate.  The media has sold so much fear based on the current president in numerous areas of life, but during the last administration when we had President Obama, the fear was around racism and Black Lives Matter, and Blue Lives Matter.  It is so strange to me that it was such an issue and in the media every day or at least every week, but now we do not hear anything about it.  There are new things to fear and the fears under Obama have fallen into obscurity.  In the 1980’s it was the Soviet Union, and nuclear holocaust.  In the 1940’s it was WWII and the rise of fascism, in the 1950’s and 1960’s it was the rise of communism.  There is always something to keep us in fear, to divide us.

I am not saying there are not real problems, but I am not sure we know what the real problems are.  We are being told over and over again, what the real problems are.  In any of these problems it would take serious research to figure out the truth.  What we are told is often not accurate.  It is a slant on what is going on, but it is not what is going on.  It does not matter where the information is coming from, someone has an agenda on the issues they tells us about, and how they tell us.  I have not watched the media for many, many years now and I believe my life is much better for it.  I tell people with depression or anxiety or both to try not watching the news for a month and see how they feel.  Most of them improve significantly.  A common reaction will be, but I want to know what is going on.  I do not think watching the news is really letting us know what is going on at all.  It is a version of somethings that are going on, that someone, some where has decided they want us to hear about for whatever reasons they have for telling us these things and driving fear in a certain direction.  It is not the truth.   Now, not watching the news for several years do I think I am uninformed?  Not at all, I hear about the things I need to hear about, through some other means.  And if there is something I want to know more about then I  might check into it, but I do not live my life in the constant barrage of media messages.

It is fear that I am really addressing here.  Most of us are living our lives with some kind of fear gong on all the time, and we make decisions based on that fear over and over again.  It can be in any area of life, it can be work, or family, or the political situation, global warmer (climate change), even conspiracies like we didn’t go to the moon, or 911 was an inside job, or Kennedy was shot by the Mafia or CIA or the Russians or Johnson had it done.

What I have noticed is most things do not really impact my life and living in fear of them will not solve anything, and it wears down my body.  Release the fear, restrict the input of fear, calm your body through meditation or other practices.  Live a quiet existence internally, and a calm life externally.  Be grounded, be peaceful, know there are things you have no control over.  Be kind, be loving, be accepting, be open.  Accept what is in the world.  One of my teachers says it is all perfect the way it is…  I understand that concept, and it is hard for me to integrate at times.  There seems to be injustice every where, but do we actually know the real story?  Hard to say, and if I spend my life energy trying to work that out I do not have any for living.

We are not living in uncertain time, we are living in times…

 

Time

It has been so long since I wrote a post here, and so much has happened in life.

My mind has been filled with thoughts of work, daily life, and other details, that have not left time or space to feel into me, you, the world.  I now sit and the keyboard and feel everything.  Opening to it all.  I realize in this I am been more closed than open for the past six months or more.  What is that closure?  Closed to life in ways, to creativity certainly.  The daily grind, the one step after another days.  This is not the life I want, I want time and space to open.

What barriers am I facing, what is keeping me small and contained in my mind and life?  What is not letting me be open to more than my small existence?

Life will distract us.  It will make demands on us.  It will keep us from our power.  There is more.  Openness is the key.  Open, quiet, space within…  Breath

As I sit here and let the words flow I feel cleansed.  Maybe for the first time in almost a year.  I feel open, I feel more free.  Freedom…  We can all be free, and our minds and our thoughts, and the demands of existence hold us back.  We have concerns over so many things.  And ultimately those concerns are just a distraction.  They feel very important.  Everything in life feels very important.  Ah, the struggle…

These past few years have been a very real struggle for me, and yet the true importance of all of this is not truly important.

Three years ago I faced a choice point.  I was killing myself with stress over a life situation.  I stopped one day and sorted out what was important in that life situation.  I realized I am not the situation.  I was very closely identified with it, and it felt like failing in that situation was annihilation of the me.  But at that choice point I realized I could continue as I was, and cause myself harm, or I could come to the understanding that I was not the situation.   I de-identified from the life situation.  I understood in that moment the situation was  not me.  There was a me, and there was a situation, but the me did not have to be sucked in to all the stress of that situation.  I feel on a much lesser scale I face this again.  Even thought three years ago I separated for the life situation I was facing, I have slowly taken on a related and extended situation.  It is not as acute, it is not as stressful, but I have slowly taking up an identification with my current life situation and wrapped it around the me.  I now wear a cloak of a life situation as if it is me, or part of me, or insuperable from me.

I engage in a form of madness, to distract me from what is real.  I, of course, am not this life situation either.  I do not stop enough, breath enough, meditate enough.  I do not let life sort itself out, but try to wrestle it to my whims.  Madness…

In the new minutes I have reflected and written, and allowed myself to not be as distracted by life I feel more openness, more space, more peace, and more of the me.    This is the true task, not the busy world we face, and all the distractions it brings, but accessing our true nature.  Another lesson in what is truly important to me.  I do not desire to let life fall apart on introspection.  I do not desire to lock myself away from the world like a monk.  I think when we open to more, rather than withdraw, we should live more in the world with the others who share this journey with us.  The strong (in whatever way) should help others.  This help can be in very small ways, or big ways, in life changing ways or just quiet ways.

Be kind, and an example to others in how to live with grace and love…

Non-Duality (not that I am an expert)

This morning I read a facebook thread about a teacher in what he called non-duality who committed suicide.  I gather from the thread that this happens from time to time.  I understand from their perspective this makes sense, but it seems to me they are missing the point of this life, and our struggles.

I also read an article by another teacher addressing this issue. http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/read/suicide_and_awakened_behaviour230

I agree with what Rupert has to say in this article.  We as Americans take part of a thing from an old eastern teachings and give them the McDonald’s treatment.  I agree with Rupert that an awakening (whatever that means) is only the beginning.  I had my first direct experiences of my true nature in 2004, and I do not feel I am done with this process in anyway.  I think in the west people have an experience and glimpse of the truth, and they dive into that and feel this is it, and over time they become disillusioned because their life has not fallen into a utopia of some kind.  That is not the nature of our awakening.  In my experiences the more awakened someone is, often the more difficult their life becomes.  And they are on a path of truth.  We cannot go back from their.  We cannot forget and fall back into our old ways of being.  We might want to, we might say this new things is way too hard, and I need to stop and go back.  This is not really possible.  Once something has fundamentally changed in us, as much as we would like to we cannot then ignore it.

I do not know any of the teachers, the two that committed suicide, or Rupert, but I do agree with what Rupert said. I read Wayne’s blog entry about his suicide, and I did not get it. I have not read his work, but I have had awakening experiences. Many of them, and I do not consider myself an expert on non-duality. I feel I will always be seeking, and I get the non-attachment part of it all. I just feel we are here for a reason. We chose to be here for a reason, and I will not leave early just in case I have not gotten to that reason. What I do know is that if we do not complete the purpose we came for, we will have to come again to complete it. I would rather handle it in this life while I am conscious of this and many other things. What I am not clear about is when I die, and return (if I still must resolve things here) will I retain my current level of consciousness, or will I have to work to come back to that place again. If I have to work to come back to that place, will I succeed, or will life circumstances get in the way. I have a theory – I think the more enlightened we are the harder our lives become. The stronger we are, the more awakened (to use a term that is meaningless) the harder the lives are. I look at those who are hugely challenged in this life, and I wonder – are they the most evolved of us, but need that final lesson in humility, or something else that I cannot conceive, to move forward in their life. Or if we have faced the worst of humanity and ourselves, say war, and rape, and incest, and slavery, etc. do we not have to face those things again having learned the lessons from them. In our society we get so caught up in the perpetrators who have done such heinous acts, but we do not consider it may have been the life path of those who were victimized by those acts to learn deep teachings from those things. We are still looking back generations and saying this was wrong or that was wrong, we cannot change those things, and there was likely learning on both sides of those issues for the evolution of the individuals and the entire species. We will have war, until we have learned all we can from it. And all the other horrible things that happen on this world. We choose this world, we chose this time, and we chose to learn something from it all.

I remember several years ago after learning surrender meditation, I could not sleep.  I was basically awake 24 hours a day for about two weeks, I talked to my teacher about this and he replied, I guess the divine wants you to be up.  And I stopped doing surrender meditation.  I did not want to be up…  I also was not tired.  I was awake almost all the time for those two weeks, but I was not exhausted.  I had energy, I was doing life, I was okay.  And I let it stop me.  Not because I was worn out or not able to function, but fear.  I created a barrier to moving forward into deeper surrender to the divine.  Now I make excuses that I am too busy to go back to surrender meditation, but I think it is still the fear.  I do have a meditation practice, but it is not surrender meditation, at least not for the present.  In the next couple of months I will go to another surrender meditation retreat and this time I will continue the practice.

Back to the issues of teachers and suicide.  I have many teachers who have been working on their awakening for 30 or 40 years.  They are amazing beings, all of them, who have real lives like we all do.  These are not people who have dropped out of society and lives a monastic life.  One of them used to say, it is easy to become enlightened by going off somewhere and sitting with a teacher for years, what is hard is becoming enlightened and doing a life in the world everyday, and taking care of family, and students, and clients, and details.  I struggle with the details, because yes there is a level of non-attachment that makes me not care much about them.  And for me to do my life’s purpose those things need to be handled.  One of my teacher’s also said, that the most enlightened people, are often the most out of balance people.  This I get too.  My life is out of balance.  Maybe it has always been, but since having had certain experiences it is more pronounced.  And it is okay, I am working on what I need to work on.  I am moving projects forward.  I am living a life that brings me joy, more than not.  None of my teachers, although profound beings, seem to be done with their own journey.  They continue to teach, they continue to do their practices, they continue to seek truth, and they continue to grow.  My teachers who were not on their own growth path have fallen away.  Because they had not continued their path, they only had so much to teach.  They were not learning and growing themselves, and therefore they could only teach to a certain stage or awareness.  I bless all my teachers and have great love for them.

For me the path is ever unwinding in front of me.  There is so much I do not know, and I feel that will always be true.  I think maybe I started too late in life.  I think this journey is at least 30 or 40 years for anyone, and to leave early because at a certain stage I feel that I have learned it all and there is nothing else to accomplish here would be a mistake for me.  Sometimes over the years I have reached that place of feeling I could not possible progress more from here.  I have come so far, I am so different, I am a completed piece in some way,  later to realize that this place was just a resting spot for a few months or maybe even a year or so, but was not the end of the journey.  Suddenly I realized I did not know anything, and the journey continued…

Significance

It has been a long time since I made a blog post.

In that time a lot has happened in my life on many fronts.  Some I have likely talked about and others I have not.

Today I was looking through my old blog posts and thought I would write.  And what is up for me is significance.

What I mean by that is that our mind is made of of significances.  Our mind makes everything more or less significant.  What happens in life is mostly neutral until our mind grabs a hold of it, and places some significance on it.  I have noticed this process of not placing significance on certain things over the past many years.  There are things I used to think were very important and effected me in a big way, that now I do not care about.  I am no longer placing significance on them.  It is hard to come up with the things I have stopped doing this with because I do not really put my attention on them anymore.

As I stop putting my attention on certain things, my mind stops placing significance on them.  And there is freedom in that.  In a way my mind has less control over my thoughts and feelings.  I have pulled out of the struggle with certain parts of life.  One of them is my family.  I stopped long ago wanting them to be a certain way.  I got they are only going to be the way there are.  They are not going to accept me in a way they haven’t.  They are certainly not going to get me as I am today, being very different than I was many years ago, and fitting into my little family niche, my family role, the good boy, or the big brother, or the adversary.  Or many other roles I may not actually have participated in, but was cast in for them to do their own personal play in the family dynamics.

This is just one area where I have stopped putting my attention on them to be a certain way, to meet some expectation I had, to meet my needs in a way that I felt I could not meet my own needs.  The dance of family that rarely feels satisfying to the dancing puppets that try to act a certain way to be accepted by the other dancing puppets who are doing the same.

With my family all I can do is get them to the best of my ability, and accept them the way they really are, and to have boundaries with them that keeps them from infringing on me in ways I do not want, while they continue with their family dynamic games.  I am more conscious of my roles, and decided which I might play or won’t play.  I strive to accept them the way their really are.  I think we tend to have less compassion for our families than we do for others in the world.  Of course our families deserve as much compassion as anyone else, they were just closer to us, and we saw the inside of what was going on.   We participated in what was going on.  We were part of what was going on.  Many of us are still wrapped up in that dance, and others have left the dance hall with the intention of no longer having contact with our former dance partners.  Neither of these is the path to freedom…

We must see the truth in ourselves, the others and the dance.  We do not have freedom in reactivity to the dynamics, either by continuing our participation, or rejecting it all.

We must seek freedom in ourselves.  Acknowledge those things that still trigger you about the others and meditate upon that until it is healed in you.  This is one way to let go of the struggle, to no longer put your attention on those things that have bothered you about the dance for so many years.  Sometimes we cannot do this on our own, and we need help.  Mind Clearing is a way to release those significances from the mind.  Enough Mind Clearing work can break up those stuck places we have lingering without ourselves.

I will likely write more on this in the future but for now…

Be well, and always seek freedom in yourself, and for others…

Trusting a Man…

This morning I have been thinking about what makes a man trustworthy.  Most of us would consider a man trustworthy if he keeps his word, if he says what he means, and if he stays within the boundaries and agreements of the relationship.

What comes to mind for me is a man who knows himself, who is grounded, who is unshakable in the face of the feminine storm.  A man who meets his partner with strength rather than anger and defensiveness, or withdrawal.  Rather than go into one of those defense strategies when faced with difficulty be present, be conscious, hold on to who you are.  Do not get lost in a response to the situation.  I have done both in my life.  A few years ago I was in a short relationship with someone who was pretty hurt and angry.  They took offense at nearly everything.  At first I was patient and in touch with my true nature but over time the attacks wore me down and I began to react.  First with defensiveness, then with anger, and finally with withdrawal.  None of those served either of us.  And as my reactivity grew the relationship further devolved and fractured.  Now, I am not saying this was a relationship that should have been nurtured but my reactions still haunt me.  Every time I fell into the trap of one of those coping strategies I felt I had failed.  I was not strong, I was not grounded, and I me.  And as this pattern continued I felt my strength eroded away.  The accusations and my defensiveness slowly undermined my groundedness, my stability, and my ability to stand firm in my true nature.  Of course my true nature was still there.  But I was losing touch with that one and the strength I had built up over time was failing me.  Most of all I felt like a failure.  I felt that I could not manage my reactions and myself.  In only a few weeks what I had worked so hard to attain seemed to be coming apart.  I was not trustable in this state of being that I fallen into.

For me to be truly trustworthy I must stay conscious, drop judgement, be grounded in the real me and approach life and relationship from that place.  If I lose my way then I lose my capacity to be conscious and make choices about how I will react to something.  When I lose touch with these things I react immediately instead of taking my time and allowing to correct response to arise.  The ability to do so comes from being stable and grounded.  Through meditative practices, through examination of my life and emotional states, through mind clearing, and other therapeutic processes.

To be absolutely trustworthy to the feminine heart a lapse in consciousness and going into reactivity is counter productive.  And every unconscious, defensive reaction takes time to heal.  Every one.  Not that we have to be perfect in anyway.  But be aware that when we react with defensiveness, anger, or withdrawal we have failed.  In that moment we are have lost trust.  These moments of of lost trust build up.  It is not one failing in this area that destroys the feminine trust in us, but many over time.  One time she says something to you that feels like an attack and accusation, and you come back with a defensive reply.  Another time she interrupts you at a task and you respond with anger for the interruption, rather than openness to her and what she brings.  Next time she does not bring it to you.  Another time she has an issues with something and instead of addressing it with her, you withdraw feeling hurt and accused.  Instead, give her your full attention.  listen to her fully, receive her communication, and take time wit your response.  Sometimes a response is not necessary, just receiving her communication in an open way is enough to calm her over the situation.  Get that you do not always have to “fix” it for her.  You can just receive it and let her clear it from her mind.  Sometimes just holding her, and having contact is enough.  Sometimes if is is something that hurt her an apology is the thing that breaks through to her heart.  Always be open and make it your goal to always foster closeness and openness between you.  Do not close to her when it is hard but open more.  This is the road to being worthy of the gift of her heart.

Humanity

I was talking with a friend this morning, and a subject I have mentioned to people several times over the years, came up in the conversation.  The subject is my youngest daughter.  I have never seen her angry.  Even as a young child, I do not recall her having an anger outburst or throwing a tantrum.  I think this is likely unique but it speaks to something larger to me.  I feel that there is an evolution going on of humanity in general.  I have seen this evolution in myself, my children, and others in my life.  I have seen many people change significantly over the past 20 years or so.  They have mostly done it on a different path than mine.  We all choose our own path and unique way of progressing, I think.  My path included several healing modalities, meditation, and meditation retreats.  I have also had many teachers along the way, probably about 10 of them over the past 20 years.  Some of them concurrently, and others as my only teacher at certain times.  Lately, I have two main teachers and a nearly daily meditation practice that are serving me well.

Others have a totally different path.  My son is a philosophy major working on a Masters degree, and I have seen his studies impact his life deeply, and he has evolved significantly through this study.  It seems to be a totally different kind of evolution that I have experienced, and at the same time I cannot deny his evolution as a human.  I have met many friends on this journey, some I am very close to, and others I have infrequent contact with.  Our journeys have overlapped in one way or another over the years, and I have seen many of them grow in some way.  Become more whole, more real,or change in significant ways through their personal work and studies.  Through their healing work in certain modalities, or deep spiritual practices.  Every year I meet more people who are on some kind of healing or spiritual journey.  Among these people I come in contact with there is change, more realness, and clearer living in some way.

Many think that humanity is falling into an abyss of anger, and fear, and moral decay.  I know not everyone is working on changing themselves or their lives but I do not think the trend is toward lower energies but we as a group, race, species are slowing changing for the better.  And I think some of that change is not through work but those being born are a bit different than those that came before.  Maybe not in all cases but it seems to be happening.  I feel my youngest is an example of this process.  At a young age she seemed settled in herself.  In a way, at the time, I was not settled in MYself.  It was hard for me to grasp what was different about her.  At four years old she would leave her toys all around her room.  I would ask her to pick them up and she just did not see the need for such an action on her part.  One day, I was upset about it and I packed up all of her toys in boxes and put them in a hall closet.  “If you can’t pick them up I will do it for you.”  She just shrugged and walked away.  I left them there for a couple of days, and she did not blink.  She truly did not seem to care about the toys.  She enjoyed them when she had them but did not seem attached to them when they were missing.  To this day I marvel at her ability to just let them go, and continue being herself.  She was clearly not her toys.  I am a family therapist, I work with family that face all kinds of issues, and I have seen children deeply impacted by losing a toy, or game, or something else they identified with closely.  With my daughter, none of this was really important, at 4 years old.  She was and is a great teacher for me on the topics of non-attachment and just being.  I will not say she does not have things to work out in life, but some of the things I had to work very hard to resolve for myself came naturally to her, and appear to be a basic part of who she is.  This is amazing to me, as someone who has worked hard to even catch a glimpse of what she must naturally be.

I think we are evolving, all of us, together; in some strange way.  It is what I talk about in the Goddess Broke My Heart, Life has a way of pushing us toward growth in some way.  What that means to each of us is likely different, but we are all moving together with our Goddess Broken Hearts, changing and growing, and evolving.  All of us, not just those who take it on as a project.  Life will give us situations that will grow us.  Over and over and over…  Sometimes we will fail in the circumstances we face, and other times we will navigate it with grace.  Always a challenge, always life serves throws something new at us.  We will resolve certain areas of who and what we are, and this will make our lives easier, and we will get stuck in certain other areas that make our lives harder.

It is not hopeless.  What we see in the news does not define us, the fear we are confronted with is not who we are, the misery in the world is not the true human condition.  We move, we grow, we evolve.  As everyone of us changes for the better, we affect those around us.  We send ripples out that influence others, and as we grow others are impacted by our growth, and through that influence often grow themselves in some way.

Those that are actively seeking opportunities to grow and change are a blessing.  Those who are organically changing through life challenges are just as much of a blessing.  We all contribute to the evolution of us all.  Humanity is not on a decline into fear and anger and hatred; but a rising spiral of more understanding, raising energy and love.  All can join us.